This invention relates generally to beverage carriers for a plurality of bottles and more particularly relates to a new and improved abbreviated height partition structure having a unique system of anchoring the structure at the bottom to retain the desired position of the structure blank to separate bottles from contact.
It is known in the art of basket style carriers for beverage bottles to provide a separate partition structure which is insertable into the carrier during the packaging process to separate adjacent bottles from damage. Such partition structures may be adhesively secured to the carrier and may also be loosely positioned within the carrier being held in place by the top panel of the carrier. By referring to the drawing FIGS. 1-4 there is shown a prior art type carrier of the type before-described with the carrier shown generally by the numeral 10 which comprises a sidewall panel 12 and 14 on both sides of the carrier along with an end wall panel 16 also constructed on both sides of the carrier. The bottom of the carrier contains a bottom wall not shown in the drawing FIG. 1 and also a top wall 18 which has a handle opening 20 formed therein. Referring to FIG. 2 of the drawing there is shown a sectional view taken along line 2--2 of FIG. 1 showing how a separate partition structure 22 having at least two hinged transverse butterfly type partition elements 24 and 26 formed thereon and pivotable about the dashed line 28. A plurality of bottles 30 are contained within the carrier 10 and the butterfly partition elements 24 and 26 are used to separate adjacent bottles. From FIG. 2 of the drawing it can be seen that the partition 22 extends to the underside of the top wall panel 18 and is held in place by bearing against the underside at 32 as well as against the underside of the bottom wall panel 34 at 36.
FIG. 3 shows a sectional view taken along line 3--3 of FIG. 2 and shows how the partition structure 22 would be placed between the plurality of bottles.
The prior art partition of the type shown and positioned in FIGS. 1-3 is shown in FIG. 4 of the drawing and it can be seen how the partition would be expensive to manufacture in light of the fact that the upper potion of the partition is used totally to hold the partition within the carrier and especially the area shown by the dimension 38.
It is known also in the prior art as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,986,658, issued Oct. 19, 1976 and assigned to Federal Paper Board Company, Inc. to attempt to shorten the partition dimension by the utilization of bottom tabs to hold the partition in place. Such a bottom tab structure is shown in FIG. 6 of the drawing and is defined as a small semi-circular tab 85 which is adapted to hinge on the score line 86 into a plane normal to the plane of the body of the blank 70. The anchoring tab 85 is trapped between the bottom of a bottle and the top face of the inner bottom wall forming panel 27 when the panels 27 and 31 are closed as shown in FIG. 2 of the drawing. In this manner the partition structure is alleged to be anchored so as to prevent it from climbing upward to an inoperative position by means of the turned over tab 85 which is captured between the bottom of a bottle and the interface of the bottom wall.
Several years ago the inventor of the subject application constructed samples of partitions using the tab structure shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,986,658 and formed a tab folding off of one side of the bottom of the partition as shown in FIG. 6 of the patent drawing. Vibration tests were run on this tab structure to simulate a 1,500 mile trip of the carrier. The partition was inserted in a Marksman 6-12 oz. package for a major brewery using bottles from that major brewery. "Marksman" is the registered trademark of the assignee of the subject patent application. The test results were unacceptable to the inventor of the subject application since the single tab structure did not confine the partition in is desired position at the bottom of the package. With the single tab structure hinged and protruding off to one side of the longitudinal partition, the vibration and give of the package and its movement caused the partition to move upward and unfold the tab enough to cause bottle contact.